The Girl From Oto Read online

  Artelan Press

  Portland, Oregon

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real places or real people are used fictitiously. Other characters, places, names and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Amy Maroney

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-0-9975213-0-6

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-9975213-1-3

  Published by Artelan Press

  Portland, Oregon

  http://www.amymaroney.com/

  Contents

  The Girl from Oto

  Contemporary Cast of Characters

  Historical Cast of Characters

  Prologue

  Ab initio. From the beginning.

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  Book 2

  Fallaces sunt rerum species. The appearances of things are deceptive.

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  Book 3

  Empta dolore docet experientia. Experience teaches when bought with pain.

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  18

  Book 4

  Caveat viator. Let the traveler beware.

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  3

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  9

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  11

  12

  13

  14

  Book 5

  Alis volat propriis. She flies with her own wings.

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  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  For Jonathan Scott Maroney

  The Girl from Oto

  Every painting tells a story. The trick is in unlocking its secrets…

  In The Girl from Oto, a young American scholar navigates a foreign world, experiencing friendship, betrayal and love as she chases the ghost of a Renaissance-era artist through Europe.

  2015: When art historian Zari Durrell scores a coveted position in Scotland researching the life and work of artist Cornelia van der Zee, she decodes clues hidden in two 16th-century portraits. Originally attributed to Van der Zee, the paintings contain traces of another artist entirely: a mysterious young woman named Mira. Risking both her professional reputation and safety, Zari tracks Mira along the pilgrim’s route of Camino de Santiago in the rugged Pyrenees mountains—and plunges deep into the past.

  1500: Mira’s own harrowing tale unfolds as Zari’s quest to uncover the truth intensifies. Born during a time wracked by war, plague, and shifting political boundaries, Mira grows up in a Pyrenees convent believing she is an orphan, unaware of the dark secret in her past. Inexplicably, she is singled out to receive an education normally reserved for men, including training in the arts. But when her peaceful existence is shattered, Mira must brave the world beyond the convent’s gates to learn the devastating story of her origins—and find the strength to face those who would destroy her.

  Contemporary Cast of Characters

  Zari Durrell

  Art historian

  Portia Durrell

  Zari’s mother

  Vanessa Conlon

  Professor at Fontbroke College, Oxford

  Dotie Butterfield-Swinton

  Professor at Fontbroke College, Oxford

  Aggie MacLean

  Research fellow at University of St. Andrews, Scotland

  Liam MacLean

  Aggie’s uncle

  John Drake

  Art conservator

  Wil Bandstra

  Adventurer and furniture builder

  Laurence Ceravet

  Professor at University of Pau, France

  Lucy Karem Wixton

  Research scholar based in London

  Historical Cast of Characters

  Elena de Arazas

  Nomadic healer in the Pyrenees mountains

  Ramón de Oto

  Baron of Oto in Aragón

  Marguerite de Oto

  Baroness of Oto, originally from Béarn

  Their children:

  Miramonde (Mira)

  Pelegrín

  Alejandro

  Johan Arros

  Monk at the monastery of San Juan de la Peña

  Béatrice of Belarac

  Abbess of Belarac Abbey

  Carlo Sacazar

  Merchant of Aragón

  Flora Sacazar

  Carlo’s wife

  Amadina Sacazar

  Carlo’s sister, abbess of a convent in Nay

  Jorge de Luz

  Patriarch of a family in Ronzal

  Thérèse de Luz

  His Béarnaise wife

  Their children:

  Arnaud

  Tomás

  Luis

  Beltrán Fivalas

  Ramón de Oto’s steward

  Sebastian de Scolna

  Painter and pilgrim

  Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba

 
‘The Great Captain’, Spanish military leader

  Prologue

  Summer, 2015

  Pyrenees Mountains, France

  Zari

  Silver threads of rain twisted down from the dark sky. A chaotic wind swirled around Zari, shifting and billowing from all directions, tugging at her backpack with invisible fingers. She stabbed at the slick trail with her trekking poles. It took all her concentration to stay upright.

  At the edge of a broad meadow, she watched massive gray storm clouds curl in on themselves, gather speed, silently collide. A blaze of light ignited the sky above the mountains. Counting the seconds until the rumble of thunder began, she eyed a nearby pine forest. The lightning was still miles away. If it got close, she would take cover in the sheltering edge where the trees met the meadow.

  A spike of adrenalin took hold of her. She was no mere observer. She was part of this great spectacle, a bit player in a dazzling show of power. Wading through the tall grasses, she let their waterlogged heads tickle her palms. A dark trail in her wake charted her progress. She would mark off the entire meadow this way, stride by stride, searching for a story written in stone.

  On her third traverse of the meadow, she stumbled and fell. Heaving herself up, she untangled a kink in the chain around her neck and tucked the shell back in place at the base of her throat. Another flash of lightning. For an instant, the sky turned a bleached bone-white. The boom of thunder that followed reverberated in Zari’s chest long enough to scare her.

  She had not taken five more steps when she saw them.

  Rows of half-sunken stone slabs jutted out before her like shards from a giant’s pottery collection. Sinking slowly into the earth, corroded by wind and rain and ice, they offered themselves up to her. Foundation stones. Evidence.

  “I knew it was here!” she shouted, waving the poles in the air.

  She turned a slow circle, imagining the buildings that once spread across this land, protected by a high stone wall, by the sharp spires of iron gates. She saw a church with a soaring bell tower, a bustling kitchen, a garden filled with vegetables and herbs. In the murmuring wind, she heard the voices of long-dead women and children.

  Then a dark shape materialized across the meadow. A tall figure moved toward her through the grass. A man. She stood mesmerized, vaguely aware of the crackling sky, the growl of thunder. She could almost see waves of sound rippling through the heavy wet air.

  He walked quickly, cutting through the raindrops with long decisive strides, narrowing the gap between them.

  Zari swallowed.

  She took one step backward and tightened her grip on the poles.

  BooK 1

  Ab initio. From the beginning.

  1

  Autumn, 1484

  Castle Oto, Aragón

  Elena

  Like the breath of an angry god, the wind streamed over the mountains from the north and slammed into the castle. The balcony shutters bucked and heaved, straining against the iron latches that held them in place. To Elena’s ears, the sound was the hollow clacking of bones.

  Wind goes where it wants, she thought, finding the source of a draft with her fingertips. She closed her eyes and imagined herself in the forest, where brittle leaves swirled in unruly flocks and golden-eyed owls blinked in the high branches of oaks.

  A faint moan rose from across the room. Elena straightened up, squared her shoulders. The sooner they got on with it, the sooner she could escape these walls. She rolled up a small woolen rug and wedged it against the base of the shutters, muffling the rattle. Then she padded across the thick Moorish rugs to the great bed and pulled aside the drapes.

  The young woman lay curled on her side. In the candlelight, it was difficult to pick out details, but Elena had dressed and undressed this body so many times that she did not need the aid of the sun to understand the predicament. The woman—still a girl, really—was built like a snow finch. Her belly was far too large for her bony frame. For months, Elena had traced its bulbous arc with her fingertips, measuring the swell of it, prodding the taut skin. The likely explanation was not a giant, but twins, and for a first birth that often meant catastrophe.

  She dipped a cloth into a copper pot of water that sat on the floor by the bed. With practiced movements she bathed the woman’s pale limbs, smoothed back her tangled hair, massaged lavender oil into her skin.

  “My lady, the baby can’t wait any longer.”

  Silence.

  She raised her voice. “Lady Marguerite! There’s more yet to do. Rouse yourself!”

  “Why do you shout at me so? Will you not let me sleep?” Marguerite turned her head toward Elena, her eyelids half open.

  Elena felt uneasy, looking into those eyes. They were silvery green, like the hide of a tree frog, and the black lashes that framed them were spindly as spiders’ legs. Perhaps it was this contrast of light and dark that made them so unsettling. Or the long, slanting sweep of them. Or their size, for they seemed much too large for the woman’s angular face. Whatever it was, there was something more feline than human about them, and Elena had never been fond of cats. She looked away and put a hand on the distended belly.

  “If you wish your baby to die, by all means sleep.” Something hard—a knee? A foot?—pressed against her palm with urgent, fluttery movements. “If you wish your baby to live, then push. Now make your choice.”

  The glowing eyes found hers. A pale slender hand slipped into her strong brown one. The young woman on the bed took a deep breath, set her jaw and bore down.

  The night was half gone when the baby was born. She squirmed and flailed her limbs, gulping air into her lungs and pumping it out again with wild shrieks. Elena cleaned her, swaddled her and thrust her into her mother’s arms.

  Marguerite bent her head over the baby. “A girl. God help me.”

  The newborn quieted and stared unblinking at her mother. After a few moments of utter stillness, she opened her tiny red mouth and began rooting for a breast.

  “She will be called Miramonde,” Marguerite said softly. “One who sees the world.”

  “How much can a girl see from behind a wall?” Elena asked.

  Marguerite shook her head. “She will not be caged. When she is old enough, she will learn the ways of the mountain people.”

  Elena stared. “Who will teach her?”

  “You.”

  Words of protest rose up in Elena’s throat. But before she could speak Marguerite convulsed in pain again.

  “Ah—I thought as much,” Elena said, careful to keep a neutral voice. “Twins.”

  “No,” Marguerite moaned. “That cannot be. What if it is another girl?”

  “Then we’ll be doubly grateful to have a plan in place.”

  When the second baby slid out of his mother’s womb, Elena held him aloft so Marguerite could see what she had birthed. He was a tiny, red, crumpled thing, smaller than his sister. Elena rubbed him briskly with a piece of clean linen and blew on his drowsing eyelids until he opened his mouth and emitted a faint wail.

  “An heir. My husband will be pleased.”

  Marguerite’s voice was low and rough, but whether that was due to emotion or exhaustion, Elena could not tell.

  “If he survives the war,” Elena said.

  “Talk like that can get you whipped. Have a care.”

  “Who is going to hear? Your father-in-law is bedded down with his favorite wench, and the steward’s lame back has made a thief of him.”

  “What do you mean?” Marguerite’s bloodshot eyes flickered to the door and back.

  “Poppy milk. He’s got your mother-in-law’s bedtime habit now. Head lolling on the cushions, drooling. ’Tis not a pretty sight.”

  Another gust of wind barreled down from the high peaks, and the shutters struggled against the rolled-up rug. Thump. Thump. Thump. Elena hur
led an irritated look in the direction of the balcony and got back to the business of cleaning and swaddling the boy. She tucked him under his mother’s arm and led his pursed red lips to her other breast. For a time, they listened to the babies nursing and the soft thumping of the shutters.

  “In the space of a moment, you have slandered my husband’s parents and their steward. I have seen serfs lose their heads for less damning words,” Marguerite said finally. “I placed all my trust in Brother Arros, bringing you here. I wonder now why he places his trust in you.”

  Elena shrugged. “I’m a creature of the mountains. Never learned to talk like a lady.”

  “You can start by biting your tongue. There are no secrets in this place.”

  “Tell me, my lady, if there are no secrets in the house of Oto, why am I here? We’ll fail before we even begin.”

  “I order you to cease your prattling and your impertinence grows.”

  “I’ve simply asked a question, my lady,” Elena shot back. “A fair one.”

  “Our plan will succeed. It must. And now you’ll do your part to keep her safe.”

  A tense silence settled over them until the baby girl fell asleep. Elena plucked her out of her mother’s grasp and wrapped her in a length of soft wool.

  “When all is said and done, you’ve two healthy babies,” she said. “And one of them a son. The luck of that.”

  Marguerite closed her eyes, one hand on the necklace at her throat. “Yes. The luck.”

  There was a stable boy Elena trusted, whose mother she had healed from illness on two occasions. She drew her cloak shut to conceal the sleeping baby swaddled against her chest. Bending over the boy’s nest in the straw, she gently woke him and asked him to fetch a certain horse that she knew to be steady and calm. He readied the mare and helped Elena into the saddle. She squeezed his hand in the dark.